Stimson, Henry

Stimson, Henry (1867–1950), statesman.Born in New York City and educated at Andover, Yale, and Harvard Law School, Henry L. Stimson became a successful lawyer. He was deeply influenced by Secretary of War (1899–1904) and Secretary of State (1905–1909) Elihu Root and by President Theodore Roosevelt, who appointed him U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York (1906–1909). After an unsuccessful try for the governorship of New York in 1910, he served as secretary of war (1911–1913), working to bring progressive reform to the army. When war broke out in Europe in 1914 he strongly advocated U.S. preparedness, and when the United States entered the war in 1917, he volunteered and was commissioned a lieutenant colonel. He served as special mediator in the Nicaraguan Civil War in 1927, and the following year was appointed governor‐general of the Philippines.

From 1929 to 1933, Stimson served as secretary of state under President Herbert Hoover. He enunciated the Stimson Doctrine of nonrecognition of the 1931–1932 Japanese conquest of Manchuria and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo. (He personally desired economic sanctions against Japan, but was pressured by President Hoover to settle for nonrecognition instead.) His strong internationalism led to his appointment as secretary of war in June 1940 within President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's newly bipartisan cabinet. Remaining in this position throughout World War II, he worked well with Chief of Staff George Marshall and played a major role in a host of pivotal wartime issues ranging from aid to England to use of the atomic bomb. He retired in September 1945. Througout his career he embodied the progressive ideal of selfless public service.
See also Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of Defense; Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of State; Foreign Relations; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Atomic Bombing of; Manhattan Project; Military, The; Nuclear Weapons.

Bibliography

Elting E. Morison , Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson, 1960.
Godfrey Hodgson , The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867–1950, 1990.

Mark A. Stoler